9.0000 Freedom of the Will

from Mumonkan
"... they must have known the basic ... teachings, such as 'Every phenomenon is only due to mind,' or 'Nothing exists outside mind.' 'Your mind is moving' (comes) directly out of this experiential fact which has nothing to do with intellectual interpretation. In other words, (when a thing seemingly moves, it is the mind that is moving). ... how should we, here and now grasp, 'It is your mind that is moving' as the living, fact in our lives?

"It (the mind) is moving, yet there is no movement.It is standing still, yet there is no standstill. For all that, moving will do and standing will do. This is the freedom of Zen, which transcends subject and object, movement and nonmovement, and real peace is enjoyed only when one lives with this freedom.

"...as you open your mouth and say, 'Your mind is moving, you have been caught by words and have completely lost the Truth. Once you open your mouth,' Mumon warns, 'the Truth is no longer there. Beware!'

"The real (human being) must be able to use freely both speaking and silence, and the truth of 'The wind is moving, the flag is moving, and the mind is moving' is in this freedom. ... and no-body knows what is what at night. The bright moon rises over the mountain truly, it is only 'it.'

"...After all, you are to be 'it' through and through, and directly and singleheartedly live 'it' and enjoy 'it,'just like the cat trying to catch a rat. The ultimate significance ... is to be grasped there, in your actually doing it." Shimayama, 210f)

9.0000 Freedom of the Will
9.0010 By freedom we mean "the quality or state of being free as:
9.0011 the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in action or choice;
9.0012 liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another: independence."
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9.0020 By free we mean:
9.0021 "not dependent on others: self-reliant,
9.0022 not determined by anything beyond its own nature or being;
9.0023 determined by the choice of the actor or by his/her wishes;
9.0024 made, done, or given voluntarily or spontaneously: spontaneous."
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9.0030 Freedom "has a broad range and may imply total absence of restraint even as imposed by necessity, or merely an unawareness of being unduly hampered or frustrated."
9.0031 Liberty implies "the power to choose what one does or says as distinguished from lack of inhibition in doing or saying; it may also imply more strongly than freedom a release from restraint or compulsion."
9.0032 Free implies "a usual permanent removal from whatever binds, confines, entangles, or oppresses."
9.0032a Release suggests "a setting loose from confinement, restraint, or state of pressure or tension, often without implication of permanent liberation."
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9.0040 By self-reliant we mean "reliance upon one's own efforts and abilities."
9.0041 By reliance we mean:
9.004la "the act of relying,
9.004lb the condition or attitude of one who relies: dependence."

9.0042 Be dependence we mean:
9.0042a "the quality or state of being dependent, especially, the quality or state of being influenced by a subject to another;
9.0042b reliance, trust."

9.0043 By trust we mean:
9.0043a "assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something;
9.0043b one in which confidence is placed;
9.0043c dependence on something future or contingent: hope."

9.0044 By hope we mean:
9.0044a "trust, reliance;
9.0044b desire accompanied by expectation or belief in fulfillment." Woolf)
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9.1000 General Overview of Viewpoints on Freedom/Free Will
9.1001 The general issue of free will revolves around our control of choices and the courses of action we may choose to execute these choices. Until recently there have been four general points of view regarding freedom. We know these as: indeterminism, determinism, fatalism, and positivism.
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9.1100 Indeterminism
9.1110 We generate our decisions as genuinely free acts of our reason.
9.1111 Thus, our decisions we do not relate to our character, nature, or the circumstances of the situation as such.
9.1120 We generate free decisions in terms of a choice of alternative possible courses of action.
9.1121 The possible courses of action are themselves determined.

9.1130 We generate free decisions in the sense that we limit freedom in accord to the factors peculiar to our own self.
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9.1200 Determinism
9.1210 We experience no choice, no freedom as our decisions, as all events, have causes of one kind or another, human or otherwise.
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9.1300 Fatalism
9.1310 We experience no choice, no freedom, as our decisions, as all events, are entirely beyond our human control.
9.1311 Whatever occurs, therefore, could not have been otherwise including the reading of these words now.
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9.1400 Positivism
9.1410 We experience choice, but our choices are nothing more or less than expressions of our preferences appropriate to the situation in which we make them.
9.1411 Our choices we experience as self-determined only in terms of their constant conjunction of certain choices with certain situations. Hunnex)
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9.1500 The question of freedom and free will rests in the place where freedom and free will reside. Where we position freedom and free will depends upon the point of view we maintain about reality. How we position our point of view depends upon how we construct our point of view within the matrix of our cognitive structure and form.
9.1501 Up to recent times, our positioning of our point of view as well as its construction we have tended not to make a matter of discussion or investigation. We accepted as a basic given the reality of the things and the reality of reality we have engendered via the constructs of physics, Newtonian mode.
9.1502 With the advent and exposition of quantum mechanics and Einstein's (among others') explication of the reality of the universe and the reality of reality, have we experienced a profound shift not only in our understanding of this universe and reality, but also of our position in both and how we (and each) came to be, if we may use this expression "come to be."
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9.2000 Transitional Conceptual Clarifications
9.2001 Our following discussion rests upon Zukav with page references being to his work unless otherwise noted.

9.2100 Today (1986) we are in a transition stage in our understanding of our position in the universe. We are beginning to understand Physics as a branch of psychology or perhaps we should say psychology is becoming a branch of physics (31).

9.2200 We experience the basic structure of nature as being granular or discontinuous.
9.2210 In other words, we experience nature changing in discrete increments. We observe change is not continuous. We see that it can get larger or smaller within terms of whole discrete units. (4f)
9.2300 We experience our consciousness associated with all quantum mechanical processes.
9.2310 We base our experience in our sensing of everything occurring ultimately as the result of one or more quantum mechanical events.
9.2320 We sense the universe to be "inhabited" by nearly unlimited number of rather discrete continuous and usually non-thinking entities that have as their responsibility the detailed working of the universe. (63)

9.2400 In Jung, we have re-discovered the acausal connecting principle of the universe we have labeled synchronicity.
9.2401 Through our experience of this principle, we know that there is no coincidence in or between this and that event or content thereof.
9.2402 We experience the direct interconnection of all that is and is not within the synchronic moment.

9.2500 We experience the organic as the ability to process information and to act accordingly.
9.2510 We have come to know that all matter, being energy, is photonic, that is, composed of particles of light. Photons we know are organic, "having systematic co-ordination" forming the organic whole." Woolf)
9.2520 Thus, do we know no inorganic substances to exist except in the illusionary fantasy of our mind. (63f)

9.2600 We appreciate the meaning of the Chinese terms for physics, Wu Li. Wu Li we can translate as "patterns of organic energy."
9.2610 We sense the grain in a panel of wood as li, as well as the organic pattern on the surface of a leaf or even the texture of a rose petal.
9.2620 Wu, meaning matter/energy, plus Li, universal order/organic pattern, is physical reality, the subject matter of physics.
9.2630 We note that in Galileo and Newton we did not understand or comprehend the Wu Li description of reality, a position "where every theory today is pointing." (5)

9.2700 We experience nature emerging in bits and pieces (quanta) moving in some manner (mechanics).
9.2710 Thus, we label our viewpoint observing quanta and their motion quantum mechanics. (19)

9.2800 We experience our being-in-the-world in one of two modalities: that of the technician or that of the scientist. Neither one is better or worse than the other, but simply as a statement of reality as a rose is a rose or a daffodil is a daffodil, both being flowers whose particular beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

9.2810 We understand a technician to be a highly trained human who applies known techniques and principles.
9.2811 The technician, thus, deals with what we label as the known.
9.2820 We understand a scientist to be a human who seeks to know the true nature of physical reality through the process of discovery.
9.2821 The scientist, thus, deals with what we label as the un-known.

9.2900 We experience space and time as one in the same reality. We sense directly that something cannot exist at someplace without existing at sometime. We also sense that something cannot exist at sometime without existing at some place. (148)
9.2910 Within the space-time continuum, as we label our sensation, we find what we label physics and enlightenment.
9.2911 We include in our experience of physics our experience of the external world of physical phenomena.
9.2912 We include in our experience of enlightenment our experience of the internal world of perception.
9.2912a We posit that freedom and free will do not exist in our experience of the external world of physical phenomena.
9.2912b We posit that freedom and free will do exist in our experience of our internal world of perception.
9.2912c We experience directly our experience and the existence of the external world to be the product of our experience of our internal world of perception, the thesis of quantum mechanics.
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9.3000 Determinism
9.3001 Determinism in psychology we know as the doctrine that states we are not free in the performance of our actions. In place of us, physical and psychical conditions determine our behavior.
9.3002 Fatalism takes Determinism one step farther, into a theological dimension. Here, we experience all our activities predetermined by God Himself.
9.3003 From a deterministic point of view, we experience every fact in the universe guided entirely by law. We ground our experience in Democritus' reflection on the impenetrability, translation, and impact of matter which in itself allowed only for mechanical causation.
9.3004 Thus, we experience all the facts or components of the phenomenal realm, including elements in our human history as well, in every case are dependent upon and conditioned by their causes. Runes, 78)

9.3010 From a indeterministic point of view, we experience we possess a bit more freedom. We experience that our volitional decisions are in certain instances independent of prior physiological or psychological causation. (Ibid., 143)
9.3020 Determinism, strictly considered, we label Hard Determinism. Here, there is no sense in which our actions are free as all of our behavior is caused.
9.3030 Indeterminism we label Soft Determinism. Here, our sense of freedom is in direct relation to the types of causes on our behavior. Flanagan, 48)
9.3031 In Soft Determinism we experience as meaningless the idea that we are responsible for our past actions. We ask ourself from this point of view, "How could we have behaved other than we in fact did?"
9.3032 Likewise, we find as completely intelligible the promoting of a sense of personal responsibility. Such a promotion we experience as prospective and involves the possibility of acquiring knowledge, information and maintaining a motivation to respond differently than we would have. (Ibid., 51)

9.3040 If we abstract free will and inquire how it can co-exist within a deterministic substrata, we know that the answer is in the eye of the willer. Hofstadter, 320)
9.3041 In this regard, how often do we experience ourself saying "I am determined to do this" when we could have just as easily said, "I choose to do this"?
9.3042 In order for us to see ourself making one statement over the other, we need to observe the ground of each point of view. To say, "I choose to do this" involves changing our way of thinking from a dualistic (me/not-me) mode to a unified mode. In a unified mode, we experience the universe without boundaries, with its elements flowing freely into each other, "overlapping, with no clearly defined categories or edges." (Ibid., 343)
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9.3100 In the old physics of Newton we assumed that there exists an external world, a world apart from us. Furthermore, we assumed that we could observe, measure, and speculate about this external world, the phenomenal realm, without changing it. We even thought we experienced this external world being indifferent to us and to our needs. (29)
9.3110 In The Copenhagen Interpretation of the new physics of quantum mechanics, we rejected the presumption that we could understand reality in terms of space-time. We, instead, began to use probability functions to describe nature not only in microscopic space-time realities, but also in the macroscopic reality of sense experience. (39)
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9.3200 Regarding volition itself, have we come to experience it as a complicated internal configuration. This configuration we find we developed through our history, encoding tendencies towards future internal configurations and away from others. (Ibid, 199)
9.3210 In this way, we experience that our significant human actions are not random. We observe that they do bear a coherent relationship to our specified goals. Robinson, 41)
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9.3300 In the deterministic model that we engendered in Newtonian Physics, we created the universe as a Great Machine. We stated that once this machine was set in motion, it has to behave according to preestablished laws inherent in the mechanisms of the machine itself. Thus, everything that is to happen, has been previously determined to be as it is now.
9.3301 Concerning to our freedom and free will — our ability to alter the cause of events — is a part of the predetermined fantasy component of the universe. It is a part of the plan that we consider the proposition of free will and freedom. In reality, we are nothing more than cogs in this great machine, doing whatever we are doing (including reading these words) because it is part of the plan. (26)
9.3310 In Aristotle, we observed that it was the natural inclination of a moving object to return to its state of rest.
9.3320 In Newton, we observed that this moving object will continue moving forever if something else does not act upon it. In this regard, we reasoned from our experience that an equal and opposite reaction accompanies every action.
9.3330 In the new physics, we see that there is no moving object in the first place.
9.3340 Then, with this bit of distance, we see that we began to see our universe as a great machine actually from our observation in Descartes.(23)
9.3341 We begin to understand that from the Cartesian point of view, we have been trying to explain reality so that every element as a corresponding element in theory. (xxix)
9.3342 Thus, we find that "the exact science" can no longer study through observation objective reality — a reality that moves on in its own predetermined way. We find in stead that the distinction between objective and subjective never existed except in our fantasy, in our mind as we so programmed from a chosen point of view.
9.3343 In the new physics of quantum mechanics, the empirical evidence leaves us without any other conclusion than to accept that "the cogs in the machine have become the Creators of the universe." (144)
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9.4000 Precursors of Quantum Mechanics
9.4100 In Ptolemy we experienced a geocentric universe. We found ourself to be the center of all that is (and is not).
9.4200 In Copernicus we experienced a heliocentric universe. In the face of cold data we had to give up our ego/geocentric position in favor of a body bigger and brighter than we are. Earth, our home, was no longer the center of the universe.
9.4300 In Galileo, following the Middle Ages, did we first quantify the phenomenal realm. Here we experienced a single universe of which we were a part. We measured motion, frequency, and the duration of everything. We found ourself measuring falling stones and swinging pendulums. (24)
9.4400 In Descartes, we developed many fundamental techniques that became the foundation for modern mathematics. We also developed an image of the universe as The Great Machine. (24)

9.4500 In Newton, we discovered natural principles that unified great tracts of our experience. From the diversity in nature we abstracted certain unifying concepts to which we gave mathematical expression. We came to know the universe as containing a structure that we could rationally comprehend.
9.4501 We learned that we do not understand something unless we have a picture of it in our head. This single concept we have subsequently discovered we must turn around if we are to grasp the new physics. The picture in our head is the reality. (21)
9.4502 In Newton, we established laws that depict events that are simple for us to understand and easy to picture. In the new physics, we find that we depict probabilities of phenomena rather than laws. In the same moment, we find these probabilities we cannot conceptualize or even visualize.(20)
9.4503 In Newton, we experienced time as a dynamic picture. We observed events developing with the passage of time. We knew for certain that time is one dimensional, always moving forward from a present predicated upon a past. Now we find that time is not like this at all.
9.4503a We observe time now as static and non-moving. We observe that events to not develop, they simply just are. Those things or events which seem to us to be unfolding with the passage of time, already exist in toto. We see them painted on the fabric of space-time, the space-time continuum. (150)
9.4504 Our assumptions in Newton about reality and the universe we have proved untrue, which is not to say they are useless. We know from our empirical data that:
9.4504a There is a universal time whose uniform passage equally affects every part of the universe.
9.4504b There is not a separate space, independent and empty.
9.4504c There is no place somewhere in the universe that is absolutely still, quiet, and unmoving. (158)
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9.4600 We find ourself in the same historical moment that we found ourself in the moment of Copernicus. None of us, except Copernicus, wanted to believe that our earth revolves around the sun.
9.4601 In Goethe we observed about the Copernican revolution:
"Perhaps a greater demand has never been laid upon (human) kind; for by this admission (that the earth is not the center of the universe), how much else did not collapse in dust and smoke: a second paradise, a world of innocence, poetry, and piety, the witness of the senses, the convictions of a poetic and religious faith; no wonder that (humans) had no stomach for all this, that they ranged themselves in every way against such a doctrine..."
9.4602 In Heinsenberg we observed about the Quantum revolution:
"... when new groups of phenomena compel changes in the pattern of thought ... even the most eminent of physicists find immense difficulties. For the demand for change in thought pattern may engender the feeling that the ground is to be pulled from under one's feet. ... I believe that the difficulties at this point can hardly be overestimated. Once one has experienced the desperation with which clever and conciliatory (people) of science react to the demand for a change in thought pattern, one can only by amused that such revolutions in science have actually been possible at all." (192)
9.4700 Thus, in Newton's great work we observed how the earth, the moon, and the planets are all governed by the same laws as do falling apples. In Descartes, we invented analytic geometry to depict the relationship between different measurements of time and distance.

9.4701 Here we experience the strength of western science. Through it we can bring the seemingly diverse elements of our human experience into a rational framework of simple concepts such as the laws of motion.
9.4702 We acknowledge as well that the starting point of this process was a mental attitude we maintained about the universe, reality, the phenomenal realm. We perceived the world as fragmented. We established our different experiences as being logically unrelated. In Newton, we sought to find the relationship between these pre-existing separate parts. (304)
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9.5000 Quantum Mechanics
9.5010 To begin in the present, we know from our empirical data that we can never know enough about the present to make a complete prediction about the future or a future. We know that it is not a matter of our measuring devices or lack of them, or our desire, will or determination. In reality we find quanta and that they move. We cannot study both quanta and motion. Given the nature of things, that we must choose which one we are to know with precision. In essence, this is quantum mechanics. (26)
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9.5020 In Heinsenberg we learned that:
9.5021 We cannot know both the position and the momentum of a particle with absolute precision;
9.5022 We can know both, approximately, and the more we learn about one, the less can we learn about the other.
9.5023 We can know either the particle or its motion with precision, and knowing one, we know nothing about the other.
9.5024 This appreciation in Heinsenberg we label the uncertainty principle. (27)
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9.5030 In Heinsenberg we learned to be comfortable with, as well as being, a middle space, a medium, between the idea of an event and the actual event.
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9.5100 Implied in quantum mechanics we find:
9.5101 that we influence reality directly and even in some sense, we actually create it.
9.5102 that we must choose, a statement of our freedom/free will, which property we wish to observe — as we cannot, given the nature of reality, observe both — the momentum of a particle and the position of the particle. It becomes obvious to us that we cannot determine the position of a particle if we are observing its motion and that if we are observing its motion, we cannot observe its position. One or the other. In each and every case. (28)
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9.5200 Regarding these particles, we have come to define them as "tendencies to exist" or as "tendencies to happen." We express the strength of these tendencies in terms of probabilities. We readily know, from the direct experience of our empirical data, that these particles are neither matter nor energy, but both matter and energy one within the same moment. (52)
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9.5300 A double irony begins to unfold in our consciousness as we further observe Newtonian and quantum physics. Laws, we see, governing the "natural order of things" are the basis for Newtonian physics. When we see these laws in terms of the great machine image, we find ourself and all in the great machine basically impotent. In quantum mechanics, we see that limited knowledge of future phenomena is its basis. Now we see no great machine. In its place do we discover the "possibility that our reality is what we choose to make it." (29)
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9.5400 What emerges as a result is a parallel apprehension of reality we glean through Buddhist viewpoints. We find an essential grasping of the phenomenal realm to be the interdependence of all things. Each part of physical reality is constructed of all other parts. In quantum mechanics, our empirical data shows that "all particles exist potentially as different combinations of all other particles." (238)
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9.5500 In quantum mechanics we see quickly that our words only represent something else, the real thing, that they are not the real thing. (Thus, the introductory admonition to this manual not to pay attention to the words, to let the words be present to your eyes, along with this handbook's structure and its form, and let the reality they image become clear without the biases of the meanings you, through the aegis of your mind, would like to have them have.) Through quantum mechanics we can readily see the understanding of the philosophy of enlightenment that "everything is a symbol. We come to appreciate that the reality of symbols as an illusory reality," even though it is the one in which we are being. (255)
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9.5600 Thus, do we know that there are no descriptions of reality. (79) We find descriptions incompatible with what we want to say because we base them upon what we think.

9.5601 In the west, we tend to base our thinking upon ancient Greek modes of thought. From these thought patterns, we tend to think that only Being is. Therefore, we "knowingly" conclude, that Non-being is not. Through the ages we have experienced this mode of thinking to be a practical tool for dealing with and/or in the phenomenal realm.
9.5602 Only now are we coming to realize that this mode of thinking in no way describes what-is-the-case. From the empirical data of quantum mechanics, we know that Non-being also is. Being and Non-being are what-is-the-case, are "that-which-is. Everything, even 'emptiness,' is that-which-is. There is nothing which is not that-which-is." (308)
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9.5700 "'Reality' is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perception. What we perceive depends upon what we think. What we think depends upon what we perceive. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality." (310)
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9.6000 Quantum Mechanics and The Universe
9.6100 We find that we cannot easily tell any longer if we are really discovering anything new. We are tending to observe that what we used to see as a discovery is now in actuality a creation.
9.6101 Thus, the clear distinctions we used to make in our images of scientist, poet, painter, writer are blending into one other, that of creator. (9)
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9.6200 We come to realize a sobering implication of the data we gather from our experiments in quantum mechanics. We must now admit that all the things in our universe — even us as well—are actually parts of "one all-encompassing organic pattern, and that no parts of that pattern are ever really separate from it or from each other." (48)
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9.6300 In our universe we find that there are really no such things as "gravitational fields" and "masses.' We create them, "they are only mental creations."
9.6301 We find that gravity is simply acceleration. Acceleration is motion. There is no gravity, there is just motion. We created gravity just as we created time.
9.6302 As for matter, we find from our empirical data that matter per se does not exist either. We observe that what we created as matter is really the curvature of the space-time continuum.
9.6303 And while we are at it, we find that even energy does not have reality. Our evidence demonstrates that energy is mass (E = MC2) We already have seen that mass/matter is really space/time curvature.
9.6304 Furthermore, our conception (which exists in our mind, which itself exists in itself) of our planet in its well designed orbit moving ever so predictability around what we know as our Sun is equally a fantasy (as are all realities existing in the mind). Our evidence shows us that the supposed gravitational fields holding our planets in place "is actually a pronounced curvature of the space/time continuum finding its easiest path through the space/time continuum in the vicinity of a very pronounced curvature of the space/time continuum." (179)
9.6305 Hence, we realize that "there is nothing but space-time/ motion and these, in effect, are the same thing." We understand finally "an exquisite presentation in completely western terms, of the most fundamental aspects of Taoist and Buddhist philosophies." (179)
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9.6400 Regarding freedom and free will, the light begins to shine that neither exist nor have reality except in our mind. Our entire exercise in reality is an absolutely meaningless exercise within the context of absolute cognition.
9.6401 We know that there is no possibility for us to create a world to describe reality. (Hint, if these words invite your cognitive structures to emerge shadows of pessimism, then you are now existing in your mind and have missed the point entirely. But there is no point.) (And that is the point.)
9.6402 We are it. This is it. (305)
9.6403 Thus, we know "the world (and universe) couldn't be any other way. It is neither well nor not well. It simply is what it is. What it is perfectly what it is. It could not be anything else. It is perfect. I am perfect. I am exactly and perfectly who I am. You are perfect. You are exactly and perfectly who you are." (281)
9.6404 And thus, the introductory readings that head this manual. Pay no attention to the words, their structure or form — and know, then, reality.
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9.6500 Our empirical evidence shows us that we intellectually create our reality, our universe. When we use vacuum diagrams, standard aparati of our well-intentioned physical science, we must acknowledge the impossible.
9.6501 When we refer to "empty space," we conclude that it is empty. There is nothing in it and, thus, nothing can come from it. We are satisfied with the straightforwardness of our reasoned understanding of empty space.
9.6502 Before us, in the empty space of the vacuum, something does come out of, emerge from, the emptiness. Thus, we need acknowledge that there is "no such thing as 'empty space' (or 'nothing') except as a concept in our categorizing minds." (240)
9.6503 Before us, now that there is something in the empty space that is no longer empty, that something disappears back into the emptiness from which it emerged.
9.6504 We readily see we create the distinction. Empty/full, something/nothing, good/bad, right/wrong are just our abstractions from our experience which we have mistaken for experience.
9.6505 We sense our illusion — perhaps we have been living so long in our abstractions that instead of realizing that we draw them from the real world, we believe they are the real world. (240)
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9.6600 We might question then, well, just what is real and in what sense is the universe real? In Finklestein, we find the basic unit of the universe to be an event, a process. (Careful, if you made "event" a static, one time affair, then you are still using your Newtonian-Greek thinking mode and are in error, not wrong, just in error.) (And if you hear your mind saying, "But the dictionary says.." please try on the coat of Resistance and experience resistance — for that is now which is the case.)
9.6601 These processes link together in certain ways and form a web-like pattern (Li). These webs in turn join and form larger webs, and so on throughout the phenomenal realm.
9.6602 These basic events we find do not exist in space/time, but before it. Space, time, mass, and energy we find as secondary qualities derived from the basic events of the universe. (279)
9.6610 In Bell's Theorem we see that "apparently separate parts of the universe could be intimately connected in a deep, fundamental level."
9.6611 In Bohm we asserted this fundamental level to be an unbroken wholeness and in his words, "that-which-is." "All things, including space, time, and matter are forms of that-which-is. There is an order which is enfolded into the very process of the universe..." (305)
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9.6700 Thus, we come to "the ultimate conclusion...that mind (the ultimate form of it) originates matter, and matter is illusional in that it is substantiated only by relative forms of consciousness, derived from mind."
9.6701 We experienced our reality "stated briefly by University of Paris professor of physics Bernard d'Espagnat: 'the doctrine that the world is made-up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and the facts established by experiment.'" Litvak, 163)
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9.7000 Quantum Mechanics and Perception
9.7001 We can now readily experience our mind to be "a pattern perceived by the mind." Hofstadter, 200)
9.7010 From our observation of our being-in-the-world, we discover that we maintain two general intellectual preferences:
9.7011 We prefer intellectual explorations that require precise logical processes. Thus, we tend to engage in the natural sciences or mathematics. We gravitate toward these realms simply because we gratify our scientific mental head set by so doing.
9.7012 We prefer intellectual explorations that require a less logically rigorous activity. Thus, we tend to engage in what we label the liberal arts. We do so because the liberal arts gratify our liberal arts mental head set. (xxvii)
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9.7100 In quantum mechanics we deal with the essence of the universe. We deal with the center of things. We call ourself a master when we teach essences.
9.7101 We know what to teach in order to expand one's perception. When one stands in awe at a natural phenomenon, then we begin our dance with it in wonderment. (7f)
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9.7200 In our dance we encounter physical concepts. These concepts we show are not uniquely determined by the external world as seems to be the case. (8)
9.7210 We know that the description is not the described. We also know that it is possible to experience the described through the description. If we do, then that experience is part of us as the experiencer.
9.7211 When we read a description of space/time from the context of relativity, we readily "experience that space and time are only mental constructions." (16)
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9.7300 The essence of our dance is observation. We understand that when we observe something "objectively" we can see the world "as it would appear to an observer who has no prejudices about what s/he observes."
9.7301 Thus, we spend a lot of time being as objective as possible in any given situation. From our day-to-day living situations to the science lab, we strive for a sense of objectivity. We conclude along the line that we really know what is going on in this situation or even about our own self in the phenomenal realm.
9.7310 We smile when we realize that for three or more centuries we have been in error. We begin to laugh as we realize that much of our perception of the objective world around us is in error. We grin bemusedly when we see that even our dance in this handbook is really not a record of the mind as such, but more a record of human folly.
9.7311 To maintain an attitude to observe the world "as it would appear to an observer who has no prejudices about what s/he observes" is in itself a biased and prejudiced attitude.
9.7312 Our prejudice has been to be "objective," "to be without a performed opinion."
9.7313 In an illuminating moment, we experience the impossibility to ever be without an opinion. We then sense that an opinion is nothing more or less than a point of view.

9.7320 Our decision to observe or study one segment of our reality rather than another "is a subjective expression of (ourself as the) researcher who makes it."
9.7321 Our decision immediately effects our perception of reality—nothing else.
9.7330 Thus, we see that we cannot observe reality without changing it. (30)

9.7340 Thus, we perceive that there is no objectivity. (31) We created objectivity, abstracting it from our experience of reality that we predicate upon our perception of reality.
9.7341 We made the quest for objectivity purposeful, when it in itself is meaningless except as a fantasy of our mind.

9.7350 As a result, we are not distinct from the nature of reality, but are the nature — in the fabric — of reality. We see that "when we study nature, there is no way around the fact that nature is studying itself." (31)
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9.7400 This being so, we then ask "Who is looking at the universe?" We could also ask in the same moment, "How is the universe being actualized?"
9.7401 Our answer circles in and around itself. In a sudden moment of realization, we sense/feel/perceive that "we are actualizing the universe.
9.7402 Since we are part of the universe, that makes the universe (and us) self-actualizing."
9.7403 And we recall similar strains of awareness echoing from some similar aspects of Buddhist psychology. (79)
9.7410 We might ask, then is the universe dependent upon us for its actualization? What occurred before we came on the scene?
9.7411 Without our perceiving the universe, it continues generating "an endless profusion of possibilities." We base our perception on the Schrodinger equation.
9.7412 From this equation we also see that the effect of our perception upon the universe is immediate as it is dramatic. When we observe a system, all the wave functions that represent that system collapse, except one that actualizes into reality. (79)

9.7420 Again we see the primary significance of the uncertainty principle: "we cannot observe something without changing it." We are part of the experiment, be it of life in general, or the cosmos, or even our own private life. We cannot look at it. We are it. (112)
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9.7500 We begin to glean the underlying meaning of the Zen book's title Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.
9.7501 With the mind of a beginner, we are empty. We experience ourself in our freedom — freedom from the habits of the expert. We are ready to accept, to doubt, and to be open to all possibilities. We sense directly the freedom of the universe. We realize our responsibility for the universe in what we choose to actualize in it.
9.7502 Thus we experience a firm confidence in our self. (118) From our confidence, we experience our self-reliance and thus can express our freedom and liberty, showing our free will.
9.7503 We sense the lack of substance in our emerging world — simply because there isn't any substance in the first place. We find that our reality, our universe, is "an artificial mental structure that is like a hall of mirrors." (192)
9.7504 Yet, it is so that it is only through our perception that we can observe physical phenomena.
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9.7600 Thus, do we see our way through the bonds of our concepts ("veils of ignorance").
9.7601 Having seen our way through, we can "perceive directly the inexpressible nature of undifferentiated reality."
9.7602 We experience our humility in our experience of undifferentiated reality for we know this "is the same reality we are part of now, and always have been a part of, and will always be a part of." (255)
9.7603 We may even recollect a feeling from the Catholic Ritual, Latin mode: per omnia secula seculorum, in a word, forever.
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9.7610 Our experience of seeing our way through our own concepts is a direct experience. Our experience is a state of being. As a result, we cannot describe it.
9.7611 Like in happiness, we experience the intimate perception of emotion and sensation. This intimate perception we cannot describe either as an emotion or as a sensation as together, in our perception, do we encounter and be a state of being. (256)

9.7620 Thus, we experience our liberty as in our pure experience, we never encounter just two possibilities. We sense immediately that our conceptualization of the situation may have included the limit of only two possibilities. If, in our conceptualization, we encounter only two possibilities, then we have assumed that our experience follows the same rules as do our symbols for experience.
9.7621 We have created the world of symbols, for the most part, to consist of either this or that, x or y, perhaps a z given a set of givens. These symbols are symbols. They are not real and have little, if any, semblance to reality.
9.7622 We experience in the world of experience there are an infinite "number" of alternatives available, with none of them either right or wrong, good or bad, up or down, in or out. (271)
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9.7700 We experience vitality in our experience of the all-pervading unity contained throughout and within the fabric of the universe, of all that is and is not. We sense directly that "this" and "that" are not and really have never been separate realities.
9.7701 We experience everything as manifestation. We know through our being that "everything is a manifestation of that which is. That which is, is. Beyond these words lies the experience, the experience of that which is. (305)
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9.7800 We have seen, in summary, in Heinsenberg's uncertainty principle that we change that which we observe. The physical properties of that which we observe we experience enmeshed "in our own perceptions not only psychologically, but ontologically as well."
9.7810 In Bohr's principle of complementarity we experience the relation of physics to consciousness. Our choice in the experiment (any experiment, from the science lab or what we do in the experiment of our own life) determines "which mutually exclusive aspect of the same phenomena (wave or particle) will manifest itself." (305)
9.7820 In Bohm, we state that "instead of staring with parts and showing how they work together (The Cartesian order) we start with the whole." (305)
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9.8000 Thought in Quantum Mechanics
9.8010 We easily see that we cannot base our intelligence upon reasoning alone. Perhaps we can better phrase this by saying that we experience isolated reasoning as an impossibility.
9.8011 We perceive that our reasoning depends upon our prior setting up of a whole system of concepts, percepts, classes, categories, and so forth. We know that it is through this cognitive matrix that we understand each and every situation.
9.8012 Within this cognitive matrix, we experience our biases and selections, our judgments and discriminations. In the phenomenology of our intellectual experience, we know that our reasoning faculty must accept the first characterization we present it through our perceiving faculty.
9.8013 And then we experience the critical doubt — our cognitive matrix allows for an automatic doubting sequence to switch on. We then experience our perceiving faculty must return to the stimulus and reinterpret it according to our doubt.
9.8014 Hence, we find our grasp of reality to be a continual loop between levels.
9.8015 As a result, we experience "such interplay between perceiving and reasoning sub-selves (bringing) into being (our) total self — a moral (human being)." Hofstadter, 343)
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9.8020 Things change just as soon as our own perception of our own being-in-the-world changes. We experience that we cannot be the observer.
9.8021 If not the observer, then we become by necessity, a participator. We then experience the vitality of our being-in-the-world. Participating is the vitality of the universe: every element of the universe is participating with every other element, regardless of how any element perceives itself or other elements. (28)
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9.8030 In Jung we know the psychological rule "that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate." In other words, when we remain individuated and do not become conscious of our inner contradictions, "the world must perforce act out of the conflict and be torn into opposite halves."
9.8031 Hence, again, we experience physics as the study of the structure of consciousness. (31) No matter how we turn, we meet the same reality, our universe, our reality, and ourself are one in the same without difference or distinction, with full and absolute positive regard.
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9.8040 In the Copenhagen Interpretation (cf.) we developed the first consistent formulation of quantum mechanics.
9.8041 For starters, we say "in effect that it does not matter what quantum mechanics is about."
9.8042 What we find critically important is "that it works in all possible experimental situations."
9.8043 For the first time since the 1700's, we are merging the rational and irrational (as we so label them now) sides of our experience of the universe.
9.8044 We find that quantum mechanics did away with a one-to-one correspondence between reality and theory. In the same moment, we find ourself disregarding the laws which used to govern individual events. We are stating instead laws that govern aggregations.
9.8045 In order to completely understand reality, we have had to realize, sense, and experience that "a complete understanding of reality lies beyond the capabilities of rational thought."
9.8046 "Therefore, the new physics we base not upon Absolute Truth (of reason), but upon us." (38)
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9.8100 Our Greek mode of thinking (either/or) we realize is in error. We base our realization upon our observation of the duality in the wave-particle.
9.8101 We can no longer accept the proposition that light can be either a wave or a particle. We see with our own eyes that light is both a wave and a particle, depending upon how we look at the situation. (65)
9.8102 In Finkelstein's experiment we see, furthermore, the thing-in-itselfness of diagonally polarized light reflecting "the true nature of experience." We sense immediately how our either/or format of our cognitive structure applies only to our symbolic representations of reality and have nothing to do with reality itself. (269)
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9.8200 Consequently, we see that our minds and the real world follow two different sets of rules.
9.8201 Our rational mind we experience directly forms cognitive structures we base upon our limited (come with the package) perspective. These structures we experience directly determine what our rational mind will or will not accept freely.
9.8202 "From that point on, regardless of how the real world actually operates, this rational mind, following its self-imposed rules, tries to superimpose on the real world its own reason of what must be. This continues until at long last a beginner's mind cries out, 'This is not right. What must be is not happening. I have tried and tried to discover why this is so. I have stretched my imagination to the limit to preserve my belief. Now I have no choice but to admit that the must I have believed in does not come from the real world, but from my own head.'" (160)
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9.9000 Concluding Remarks on Freedom of the Will
9.9001 We do not experience free will or even freedom out-there, in-the-world. We sense our experience of freedom and free will in the moment of our perception.
9.9002 Over our history, we have come to make some moral expectations that format our "future-oriented conception of what out to be the case." From this expectation, we assume we have free will.
9.9003 Equally, we readily see that our schemes for evaluating a person's actions after the fact, suggest that we make a similar assumption.
9.9004 Our use of language with our "oughts" and "shoulds" also show that we are somehow capable of rising above the cause-effect sequence of how we construct our perception of our being in the phenomenal realm. Thus, here too, do we find that one assumption on top of another leads us to freedom and to free will again. Flanagan, 19)
9.9005 Furthermore, when we find ourself criticizing, cajoling, admiring either ourself or someone else, we also require, it seems, "the assumption that we are free, that we are, in some metaphysical significant sense, self-governing and self-creating." (Ibid., 48)
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9.9010 In Descartes we gave the human mind a limited faculty of understanding and an unlimited and unconstrained will.
9.9011 "The will is so free in its nature, that it can never be constrained. And understanding supplies a reservoir of possible action are belief options, and the will chooses among them." (Ibid.)
9.9012 We immediately see our error in the sense of meaning we assign to constrained. If our will is not constrained, then it is a matter of chance and not in our control. If, on the other hand, our preferences guide our will and we must choose in terms of our preferences, then here too we do not have free will in the strict sense. (Ibid., 248)
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9.9020 In Dewey we note that "what humans have esteemed and fought for in the name of liberty is varied and complex, but certainly it has never been metaphysically freedom of the will." (Ibid., 50)

9.9030 In Freud, we deny the existence of free will. (Ibid., 64)

9.9040 In Skinner, we reduce free will (as well as incorporeal mind) to the realm of philosophical fantasy. We see that free will and the rest do not refer to existing entities and processes. We label our expressions like "I did that of my own free will," "Cartesian inspired nonsense." (Ibid., 91)

9.9050 In all honesty, we can also cite an equal (if not greater) number of our ancestors (living and dead) who promote free will.
9.9051 In reality, though, we can demonstrate (to a point, for it is a matter of perceptual viewpoint) that we do have choice.
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9.9100 In the Newtonian universe, given the existence of event x and event y, their natures, properties, intents, and so forth, the event z will happen next.
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9.9200 In the Quantum universe, given the same two events, then there exists the probability that event z will happen. What happens here is that we must choose either to measure the position or the momentum as we cannot choose both and attain any significant degree of accuracy. Our choice alters the reality of the reality within the situation as to its randomness we have now quantified. (28)
9.9201 We also realize that what we are observing is not nature itself. We know that what we are observing is nature exposed to our method of observation. (114)
9.9210 We experience that the way we pose a question often illusorily quantifies our response. For example given the Lebanese civil war and a group of masked gunmen stopping us as we are walking a street in downtown Beirut. With guns pointing at us, they ask, "Are you Christian or Moslem?" How any of us answers, our odds are 50% for/against us. Perhaps do to our fear, we respond, "We're tourists!" and break through the illusion of the words.
9.9220 Likewise, the way we think our thoughts can limit our perception of either/or. "Experience itself is never so limited. There is always an alternative between every this and every that. The recognition of this quality of experience is an integral part of quantum logic." (271)
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9.9300 In quantum mechanics we look at our choice of either this or that, both this or that, or something somewhere in between or on the outside or surrounding this/that. We can still question — is it choice, is it free?
9.9310 Perhaps our choice has been made at the inception of the universe. The universe began and it must develop in its cause/effect pattern no matter what. We label this view determinism and make it the foundation for the Great Machine view of the universe.
9.9320 Perhaps not even the initial start of the universe could have been other than what it was. "No matter what we are doing at any given moment (like giving these words meaning in this moment), it is the only thing that ever (is) possible for us to be doing at (this) moment." We label this view superdeterminism and is even more absolute than simple determinism.
9.9330 Perhaps whenever we choose in the universe "between one possible event and another, the universe splits into different branches. This we have labeled the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. (300)
9.9340 In the realm of speculation about black holes and quasars we understand that the matter sucked in by the black hole is pumped either into another universe or into another part and time of our universe.
9.9341 And we speculate that the medium through which the matter is pumped is a quasar.
9.9342 "Our universe is being sucked into its many back holes, only to reappear in other universes, while other universes are being pumped into our own universe, which is being sucked through black holes and into other universes again. The process goes on and on, feeding on itself, another beginningless, endless, endless, beginningless dance." (186) Free will?
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9.9400 Free Will? Like "nonsense." It is a mental creation. There is no such thing in the real world. From one frame of reference black holes and event horizons (and free will) make sense. From another frame of reference absolute non-motion makes sense. Neither is "nonsense" except as seen from another point of view.
9.9410 "We call something nonsense if it does not agree with the rational edifices that we carefully have constructed. However, there is nothing intrinsically valuable about these edifices. In fact, they themselves often are replaced by more useful ones.
9.9420 "When that happens, what was nonsensical from an old frame of reference can make sense from a new frame of reference and the other way around.
9.9421 "Like measurements of space and time, the concept of nonsense (itself a type of measurement <like free will>) is relative, and we always can be sure when we use it that from some frame of reference it applies to us." (187)
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9.9500 Therefore, if free will exists as a fantasy as all other realities in the mind (including the mind itself) (given the perception based upon the cognitive structure that allows the mind to be its own product and thus its own fantasy), are we free?
9.9510 Are we free over how we structure our cognitive apparatus that governs what we perceive which in turn determines our thought process which in turn influences our perceptions which govern how we feel/respond in the phenomenal realm?
9.9511 We know we experience certain givens — at least at this time we consider/perceive them as "givens" — such as our race, gender, body build, intellectual predispositions or lack of them, mechanical abilities or lack of them, and so forth. In general we understand these givens to be manifestations of our own individual DNA/RNA nucleic acid composition. These givens, in Lilly, we label our basic program.
9.9512 With these givens we are fated/experience a challenge/realize an opportunity in life, depending upon how we choose to experience our experience of our own being-in-the-world. This structuring on top of the basic program, also in Lilly, we label the metaprogram.
9.9513 We know from our experience of going to sleep, we cannot try to sleep. We must let ourself enter the sleeping mode if we are to do so (barring chemicals of one sort or another to achieve the same result). We know that the more we try to go the sleep the more awake we remain. In other facets of our life, we know that the more we try to get someone to like us, usually the opposite result ensues. The harder we try, the less the result are we able to manifest.

9.9520 It is not in the "harder," but in the trying. Therefore, our free will rests in our letting things be. This does not mean we are free to do nothing — as we know from our experience (thus far in our development). We cannot let food come to our mouth from thin air.

9.9530 We are free to clear our heads of the cognitive interference that inhibits our thought which inhibits our perceptions which inhibits our feeling/response/behavior to achieve a desired goal or realize an objective.
9.9531 And like in our act of going to sleep, the moment we admit that we have been trying to sleep and simply lie back on the pillow and experience being awake, admitting being awake, then we (usually) go to sleep.
9.9532 When we first let ourself be aware that there is cognitive interference and that we have let it be so, can we then let ourself experience that cognitive interference as it is, for example a "strong" "NO! YOU will NOT succeed!" Due to other trainings in life we try to avoid having such negative thoughts (in their many varied shapes, sizes, colors, and textures — negative thoughts all evolve from "No, you can't").
9.9533 Because we try not to have negative thoughts, we even habitually avoid being aware of them when they might surface in the field of our consciousness. We make ourself unaware of these negative thoughts. We become ever more increasingly blind to how we are overlaying one metaprogram with another metaprogram in a continuous loop.
9.9534 When we have let ourself experience the negativity, experience it just as it is (neither making it more or less), it ceases to have influence. We let it go just as we let it go. Then we let ourself enter success — or whatever it is we are now being.
9.9535 It is in our letting that our ability to answer for our life rests. To the extent that we show our ability to answer for every facet of our being-in-the-phenomenal-realm do we show our wholeness and completeness as human beings. Thus, the essence of responsible integrity, for we are able to respond as a whole and complete being-in-the-world.
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Thought Creation

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